Florence’s first professional acting role nearly didn’t happen. She remembers being 17 and her mum convincing her to send in an audition filmed on her phone with half-an-hour left until the casting deadline. The audition was for Carol Morley’s The Falling, and the next day she received a call from the producers. After a summer of follow-up auditions, Florence was cast in the supporting-lead role opposite Maisie Williams. Before that she’d only performed in school plays and sang in her dad’s restaurant, so she recalls the first day on set being equal parts exciting and terrifying.
Her debut performance was hailed by critics and led to her being cast in the lead of a major US pilot Studio City. In it she played a girl who becomes a superstar, and for the shoot her face was put onto the sides of billboards and buses. When they shut Hollywood Boulevard for a scene, spectators were scrambling to get her autograph — for a character that didn’t exist. Florence recently finished shooting her first lead for film in Lady Macbeth, saying “it was incredible to work on a project where everyone on set is there because they’re passionate about the story. That’s what makes this so worthwhile.”
I'm Florence Pugh and I'm an actor.
I've never been very good at chemistry or maths or French or any of that,
so drama and music was kind of my safety.
It was like the thing that I know I'm good at and if there's a stage, I can do it.
The if or but was how I was going to get into the industry,
but I knew that that was going to be a long and gruelling process
and that was going to happen later on.
That plan got completely screwed up because I did an audition
and it was my first audition and it was just a tape that basically said
who you are, what you do, what your hobbies are, when I was 17.
I handed it in to Carol Morley for The Falling and I ended up getting the job,
which was a wonderful catapult into the knowledge of film
and the knowledge of the industry.
I had a very safe zone there of learning how things worked.
I've got a film coming out at London Film Festival called Lady Macbeth,
which is my first lead role, so I'm very apprehensive to see what people think of it.
I don't know what's going to happen on the journey.
I think that's the wonderful thing about this career
and anyone's career in this industry is no one knows.
You get given opportunities and you ride them out and see which ones work,
but the BAFTA Breakthrough Brit just gives you that little niche of being like,
yeah, you're going in the right direction and what a lovely present.
